The final semifinal spot in the WTA Finals was on the line Friday afternoon as Aryna Sabalenka and Elina Svitolina matched wits in a winner-take-all clash at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden.
The winner’s prize? A spot in Saturday’s semifinals to play Linda Noskova. The loser would see her tournament come to an end.
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On this day it was the Ukrainian Svitolina showing unlimited resolve as she dispatched Sabalenka, the highest-ranked player in the field, with a gutsy 6-3, 3-6, 6-1 victory.
After the final point and shaking the chair umpire’s hand, Svitolina raised her arms in joy and stared skyward with the biggest smile she’s worn in months. It’s been a tumultuous time for Svitolina going through a public divorce on top of the ongoing war in her home country.
But for this moment, after a thrilling win on the Stadium 2 court at Indian Wells, she could only smile.
War and peace: Ukrainian Elina Svitolina finds inspiration at WTA Finals
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Svitolina, the No. 6 seed who won this tournament in 2018, will move into the semifinals with Mirra Andreeva (3), Jessica Pegula (5) and Linda Noskova (8). The four singles players eliminated from the competition are Sabalenka (2), Coco Gauff (4), Karolina Muchova (7) and Marta Kostyuk (9) who replaced top seed Elena Rybakina who withdrew with an illness before the event started.
Elina Svitolina hits a shot against Karolina Muchova during the WTA Finals at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden in Indian Wells, Calif., Nov. 11, 2026.
Saturday’s WTA Finals semifinals are all set as it will be Svitolina vs. Noskova and Pegula vs. Andreeva.
Svitolina frustrated Sabalenka, who won the BNP Paribas Open at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden in March, early in Friday’s match. After falling behind 2-0, Svitolina got on a roll, winning six of the last seven games to take the first set 6-3.
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But that momentum was short-lived as Sabalenka started to find her form in the second set, comfortably taking it 6-3 and then breaking Svitolina to start the third set, punctuated with a roar and a fist pump for the former World No. 1.
Undaunted, though, the veteran Svitolina broke right back to even the third set and reapply the pressure to Sabalenka. Svitolina then held serve and broke Sabalenka again to take a 3-1 lead. The three-game burst had Sabalenka talking to herself, hitting the court with her racket and looking to the heavens.
The body language told the story as the cool and calm Svitolina finished off the match from that point on, collecting an impressive victory over a player that has flummoxed her over the years.
The win is another part of a stellar on-court year for Svitolina, who has won twice (Auckland and Rome) and moved back into the top 10.
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The players and fans have become used to it by now, but matches between Ukrainian players and Russian or Belarusian players — like Friday’s Svitolina-Sabalenka matchup — still come with an extra layer of procedural differences due to the ongoing war in the Ukraine. The two players do not shake hands before or after the match. A pre-match photo which is usually taken with the chair umpire and both players is not taken together as each player individually takes a photo with the umpire.
And has been the case for four years now with Sabalenka, the Belarusian flag and the name of her country is not shown on any TV graphics or official WTA materials.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Svitolina knocks out Sabalenka to grab final spot in WTA Finals semis
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: Sports.yahoo.com
